Four years after we interviewed one of the engineers tasked with realizing it, Norway’s remarkably ambitious Stad Ship Tunnel has finally been given the thumbs up. Slated to begin construction next year, the tunnel will cut through an entire peninsula, allowing ships to bypass Norway’s most hazardous shipping route.
Hailed as the world’s first “full-scale” ship tunnel (though there was a ship tunnel open in France that could fit smaller boats until it collapsed in the 1960s), the Stad Ship Tunnel will enable ships to avoid sailing around the treacherous waters of the Stad peninsula by cutting directly though it. It will have a height of 50 m (164 ft), from its floor to its ceiling, and a width of 36 m (118 ft). It will reach a total length of 1.7 km (1.05 miles).
